LookinUp

1. Adley 2. Rodriguez 3. Henderson 4. Hall 5. Cowser 6. Westburg 7. Norby 8. Bradish 9. Baumann (6 or 7 if truly healthy, lower if surgery which I still fear) 10. Ortiz (taking the D profile over...) 11. Vavra (not enough of a D profile for me) 12. Maikol Hernandez 13. Rom 14. Mayo 15. Kjerstad - we'd have to have inside info to really know where to put him. I fear for this guy's health though. 16. Haskin

As an aside, I have a bit of a data analysis (not sports) background. It's very important to know what the data does and does not tell you. People regularly jump to poor conclusions based on what they assume data to be saying, which often with more context the data could lead you to an opposite conclusion. As it relates to baseball, I think data analysis is as useful in baseball as any other sport. Likely much more so, IMO. So I'm on board with the O's approach and am generally supportive even in an eyebrow raising draft like this as it relates to pitching. With that said, the data can tell you who to bring in and it can help you develop them, but I'm not so sure that some of the historical data accounts for modern player development. By that I mean that 25% of a particular profile might end up good (think Cowser), but the point of player development is to improve that rate. So, with respect to pitching, I fear that data might be over-weighting risk by using historical player develoment benchmarks instead of projections based on modern player development. In other words, I think the O's might be able to develop more arms with less injury than historical data might show. I'm sure this isn't ground breaking to them, but I really do wonder if they have the right plan for pitching. That's all.

Fair enough. I'm just connecting dots and speculating. The dots are this. They got rid of several scouts. They almost completely skipped out on high school players, for whom data is less available, particularly in a Covid +1 year. They seem so reliant on data that I think it's over reliant. Where data doesn't exist, it's a blind spot because it's not supplemented by qualitative information. But that's just my speculation. I'm an all of the above type of guy and it seems like the O's are not in that category.

I know the O's are going data heavy, and covid caused a massive revenue issue and it appears they're stripping every cost they can perhaps in preparation for a sale, but I sure wish they'd retain enough actual people to get eyes on players more often. Not that Welk was a massive cost, but it seems to me like the data has some blind spots too.

Yeah. Cowser should have better range in the OF but won't have the cannon that Markakis had, particularly earlier in his career.

Toby Welk. Gone from Tony's list. He was the great data hope from a couple of years ago.

Even Rocker was such a huge risk that I understand not going that route. The wear and tear screams Dylan Bundy to me. I hate to say that because he was a special guy for a while there. I hope for his sake that he gets it back.

The Rays are essentially 50/50 on drafting High School vs. College in the first round. 5 of the last 10. 6 of 12, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Tampa_Bay_Rays_first-round_draft_picks

I like that his first name is Creed. I like that his last name is Willems and cannot wait for the 6,000 misspellings on the message board from people who think it's Williams. Let's hope he can rake.

If he's dealing in probabilities, he's understanding that most of these guys are 4-5 starters or relievers, a couple will face injuries, etc. There's upside, but it's hard to compete with teams throwing legit #2/3 guys most nights. You need a lot of those guys.

I think they're dealing with statistics, not people. I don't mean that negatively. I just think they're using probabilities to maximize future net returns. They'll figure out any misallocation of talent as they go. For example. People love the shiny high school object with massive upside, but I'd bet Elias' data says that if you take 100 Cowsers and 100 Lawlers, you'll end up with more WAR from the 100 Cowsers than the 100 Lawlers. Or maybe the probabilities of ending up with 10+ WAR (e.g., getting more people to have success versus total overall WAR).

I suspect Elias is aware that the list you provided alone won't produce a winning ML staff. Same is likely true when you include Baumann, Lowther, Wells, Akin, etc. He needs to add to this group.

I do think that Elias' draft strategy "means" that his plan for acquiring pitching at the ML level is not centered on drafting high profile arms. I do not think it means that Elias does not have a plan to acquire pitching at the ML level. I wonder when he's going to put that plan into motion (e.g., trades or FA signings at the ML level), because he clearly hasn't to date.

I don't think we took Cowser for savings. I think they took him for his risk profile. One of the top 2 college hitters. Defense plays in CF and definitely in LF/RF.

You might have a chance if you didn’t shut down critical vehicles for talent acquisition like free agency.

But pretty likely in 2023.

Yeah. Knock on wood.

Really thoughtful post with a bunch of interesting questions. 1) I'm not sure the college "seniors" have their typically low leverage. It's clearly lower than younger guys, but they can go back to school this year if they want, so they do have some leverage. 2) Most will focus on the $ and points will be made. If he's directed by ownership not to spend on this talent then that's his directive and it sucks. We just have to hope the team sells soon. 3) the quoted point above is what's of interest to me. If talent acquisition is of primary importance, and we have a blind spot into high school in general, then isn't that akin to sitting out the international market? You could say it's also even true of college pitching. If that's the case, I want a solution. If it's a Covid issue and all will be fine by next year, ok. However, if it's an issue of getting boots on the ground with more tools to evaluate people (even gathering data remotely), than it seems like a place the O's should be investing and one where they likely have mistakengly cut back in recent years. I just hate the idea that we're eliminating ourselves from a talent pool. It's what Elias was brought here to fix and now another blind spot might be apparent. If this is all chalked up to Covid (even budget issues), then I guess we have to deal with it. Whether for sale or Covid or both, the O's seem to be completely out of money. I hope that's not what we saw here.

Sure. You can trade pitching to them too, but you want as many of their arms back in return as possible.

Don't think I agree. It does sound to me like they're so reliant on their data that they're hamstrung when Covid offers less data on high school guys. It also sounds like they're more comfortable in hitting models and/or don't like the data that is available on college pitchers. Basically, the O's went for the rock solid 7 chick with a head on her shoulders over the 10 that's giving them the eyes because they're worried they've never seen the 10 before in their small town and wonder why she's walking around with a pool stick, a shot glass and has no friends.

I went C-, but recognize it could go from A to F. Basically picked C- because the first two picks seem like solid high floor guys. Two of the best hitters coming out of college this year. I also like Creed and Heid in particular, and don't dislike any of the other picks necessarily. It'll come down to whether we can develop them just like any class. But the lack of upside pitching is kind of remarkable. The good news is that with the Angels taking 20 pitchers, we can now trade for 4 of them to stock our system.

If the O's significantly underspend their draft pool, everyone will be mad. I still wouldn't blame Elias because I'd just assume it's coming from the Angelos family for whatever reason. If the O's don't significantly underspend their draft pool, this is essentially a draft where they think they're smarter than others and we just have to hope it's true. I'll see what they spend before taking out the pitch forks, but would be lying if I said I wasn't concerned that Elias was given less money to work with from an ownership group that's cutting every single penny possible.

This guy looks like one of the lowest upside guys I've seen us take so far. I actually like 2 of the arms taken today.

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